Since December, I’ve been pummeled with emails and caution-yellow postcards warning me of an urgent deadline. Indeed, the latest mailings announce that I’m now, all-caps, “PAST DUE.”
 
Did I miss a bill payment? Neglect to pay a parking ticket? Forget to renew a magazine?
 
None of the above. No, it seems that I failed to update my personal information in my old school’s alumni database—and thus missed the opportunity for a marketing firm to sell me stuff.
 
This is why so many people despise marketing and public relations.
 
For the record: I reached out to my alma mater and shared my concern. (Out of respect for the school and its good people, I’m leaving out names.) The alumni director, a delightful and dedicated person who has no staff support, explained that the school lacks internal resources to keep the alumni database up to date. That hurts the school's ability to stay in touch with its former students. Thus it contracted with an out-of-state marketing firm with a 50-year track record of successfully gathering this data. Their compensation: the profit from selling school-branded stuff to those who respond.
 
I sympathize with the school and the alumni director. In fact, after hearing this explanation (and knowing I'd missed the "deadline"), I initially decided not to blog about this—until yet another pair of notices arrived. For the sake of the profession, I can’t let it go.
 
I have no problem with the marketing firm’s basic model—provide a service to the school, profit off sales. However, I do have immense problems with its approach.
 
One, it’s deliberately deceptive. The firm forcefully presents its message as if there’s an urgent deadline you are expected—just short of “required”—to meet. Both the American Marketing Association and the Public Relations Society of America have ethical codes that stress truth and transparency. Hard to see how these mailings “foster trust in the marketing system … [by] avoiding deception in product design” (AMA) or “build respect and credibility with the public” (PRSA).
 
Two, it hurts the most vulnerable people. In Michigan alone, 43% of households are either in poverty or struggling to make ends meet—what’s known as ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed). Imagine you’re among them. Imagine you’re already behind on your bills; you get your share of actual past-due notices every month. The stress and anxiety are enormous. And then a postcard shouting “PAST DUE” arrives. Sure, a moment’s attention will make clear this isn’t another bill or a collection agency threat. But the moment before then is frightening, cruel and unnecessary.
 
Three, it fosters distrust of professional communicators. In an era where politicians call news media “the enemy of the people,” when some spokespersons lie with aplomb, and when some (wrongly) consider "spin" a tool of the trade, this approach trashes the credibility of everyone in the field—every marketing firm, every PR professional, and every organization that employs them.
 
What could the marketing firm do differently? Simple: Be honest. Had I received an email or postcard explaining the arrangement and asking me to respond, I would have gladly updated my file and tolerated a short sales pitch. Heck, I might have even bought something. Now? No way.
 
What should we as marketing and communications professionals do? Call out this behavior. Refuse to participate in it. Embrace the ethics of our respective fields and hold each other to a higher standard.

To my shame, sometimes I read those click-bait “worst [fill in the blank] ever” stories. I recently came across this amusing one:
 
An obnoxious traveler on a jetliner makes demands on a flight attendant, insisting that he deserves special attention because of he’s supposedly a close friend of the airline’s CEO. A woman across the aisle hears this and challenges the man to tell her the CEO’s nickname. When he tells her to mind her own business, the woman pulls out her wallet and shows him a photo from her wedding; it turns out the CEO is her father-in-law.
 
The morale of the story is clear: Your lies will find you out.
 
But the question it raises today is troubling: Does anyone care?
 
Over the past two years, I’ve started to write blogs about the behavior of White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders—and Sean Spicer before her—only to abandon them out of concern they’d be taken as political screeds. Let me be clear, I’m no fan of President Trump, who has a passed-it-in-the-hallway relationship with truth. But as a critical link between the administration and the Fourth Estate, spokespersons like Sanders bear a tremendous responsibility—to the nation and to her profession—to uphold transparency, honesty and truth. Indeed, Sanders claims that’s what she desires as her legacy.
 
In my opinion, she’s failed at all of them. While hardly a revelation, the evidence in the newly released (and heavily redacted) Mueller report underscores the fact.
 
This should sweep away whatever shred of credibility Sanders might still have with the media. Indeed, some news outlets are calling for her to resign or be fired.
 
I think it’s 50-50, at best, that she’ll go. Why? Because in this administration, loyalty trumps credibility. In this administration, and among many of its supporters, truth is a “who,” not a “what.”
 
What does this say about the public relations profession?
 
Some of my colleagues will brush it off. “That’s her, not me.” Problem is, Sanders’s “slip of the tongue” behavior reflects on all of us.
 
As a member of the Public Relations Society of America, I embrace a Code of Ethics, which says in part: “We adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and truth in advancing the interests of those we represent and in communicating with the public.”
 
I firmly believe in the Code. It’s one of many reasons why I’m a frequent critic of the word “spin”—which is synonymous with deceit.
 
But here’s the thing: If PR professionals don’t call out unethical behavior, we’re no better than those who do it. If we don’t call out dishonesty and spin, we’re saying it’s actually okay.
 
That’s the moment we sacrifice our professional morals and credibility. That’s the moment we give up our place as champions of truth.
 
No more. I regret that I didn’t post this long ago. Call it (incorrectly) a political post if you want, but regardless of person, place or party, we must call out and condemn the practices of spinning, lying and misdirecting.
 
Does it matter? If the answer is “no,” God help us all.